


I Left My Heart...In The Decon Chamber

by Warp5Complex_Archivist



Category: Star Trek: Enterprise
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2006-03-08
Updated: 2006-03-08
Packaged: 2018-08-16 03:45:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,891
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8085802
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Warp5Complex_Archivist/pseuds/Warp5Complex_Archivist
Summary: Pon Farr. (07/31/2003)





	

**Author's Note:**

> Note from Kylie Lee, the archivist: this story was originally archived at [Warp 5 Complex](http://fanlore.org/wiki/Warp_5_Complex), the software of which ceased to be maintained and created a security hazard. To make future maintenance and archive growth easier, I began importing its works to the AO3 as an Open Doors-approved project in August 2016. I e-mailed all creators about the move and posted announcements, but I may not have reached everyone. If you are (or know) this creator, please contact me using the e-mail address on [Warp 5 Complex collection profile](http://archiveofourown.org/collections/Warp5Complex).

  
Author's notes: Archer's/Endeavors' Pon Farr Challenge Contest.  


* * *

Phlox's habitual smile was missing as he punched the button to reveal the observation window in the Decon chamber. Jonathan Archer remembered how the calm smile had soothed and infuriated him by turns as they waited out the long night with his desperately ill dog. Jon realized that the doctor's solemn face made him very uneasy. He turned to look into the chamber.

Even without the doctor's warning, Archer could tell that something was very wrong with his normally calm and logical Science Officer. T'Pol paced restlessly, her hands twisting helplessly around one another. Jon's concern rose when he saw the haunted look in her eyes, and the sweat that covered her skin. He tried to ignore the inviting sheen that the perspiration lent to the strong body revealed by the brief costume she wore.

"This was caused by a microbe you picked up on the planet, you say?" Archer asked the doctor. "What about the rest of the landing party?"

"The Sub-Commander and I were the only ones exposed to the microbe, Captain. It was carried by some very intriguing marsupials we encountered."

The Captain glanced between the slightly frowning doctor and the highly agitated Vulcan inside the decon chamber. "It doesn't seem to have affected you the same as it has T'Pol, Doctor."

"No, Captain, and therein lies my problem," the Doctor said, hesitantly. Archer raised his brow to invite further confidences. Phlox always seemed so competent and sure of himself in the medical arena, that his captain could not imagine what type of problem could have flustered him so thoroughly. "The Sub-Commander's reaction to the microbe is highly unusual. So unusual that, in fact, I feel it almost violates doctor-patient privilege to speak to you about it."

"Doctor," the captain was sure of his ground here, in spite of the thorny ethical question. "The commander of this vessel was absent against his will, and the second in command was unable to take command or even aid in the search for her captain because of her condition. As her commanding officer, I need to understand anything that affects the safety of this ship and crew."

"Yes, Captain," the Doctor acknowledged the logic of his claim. "As I said, she had a highly unusual reaction. Her hormones and other items in her blood chemistry were elevatedâ€”to an extent that was not explained by an average reaction to a microbe. They could be...life threatening."

Jon regarded the doctor for a highly-charged moment. The Doctor's gaze was level and steadyâ€”he was not making this up, the Captain acknowledged. "You say that you were exposed, tooâ€”but it hasn't affected you to this extent." The Captain gestured toward T'Pol, who had sunk to the floor, and now seemed to be shivering violently. "What can we do to help her?" His gaze returned to the doctor, who moved restlessly for a moment before answering. Jon was intrigued, despite his growing concern for T'Pol. The doctor never seemed nervous about discussing any number of medical conditions that would render the most senior officers red-faced and sweating. Yet he was hesitating now. "Yes, Doctor?" the Captain urged him.

"It seems, Captain, that the microbe has triggered the onset of what T'Pol calls 'Pon Farr'," Phlox began, pulling the collar of his tunic away from his throat. Archer merely looked blank. The term meant nothing to him. "I'd never heard of the condition either, Captain, but apparently it is an urge to return to the home planet to mateâ€”or die trying."

"I...see," Archer said. He could feel his own face flush as he saw the doctor shuffle his feet. "What treatments have you tried?"

"I have been sedating her as I worked on an antidote," Phlox still looked uncomfortable. "She urged me to help her in a more...fundamental way, and I was not able to dissuade her in any other fashion."

"And now? She looks like she's in some distress. Why isn't she sedated?" T'Pol's shivering seemed to have increased. She was huddled in a ball in the corner of the decon chamber, looking miserable.

"I have the antidote prepared, added into the sedative. I feel that she should rest while the antidote works on the microbe. I had planned on giving it to her right away, but she has refused treatment. My medical ethicsâ€”"

"Dammit, Doctor, I don't need to hear another lecture about your Denobulan ethics, and how you can't treat a patient without her consent!" Jon snapped. "I won't stand by and see a member of my crew in that kind of pain, and not lift a finger to help. Do you have it in a hypospray?" Phlox held up the instrument. "Give it to me!"

Although Phlox looked like he wanted to protest, Archer was in no mood. He took the hypospray out of the Doctor's hand, and stalked to the door. "It doesn't look like she'll be giving me any trouble. Meet us in Sickbay." Jon punched the button to open the decon chamber door.

As the door hissed shut behind him, T'Pol raised her head. "God, she looks awful," Jon told himself as he saw the mingled pain and vulnerability in her eyes. "Captain," she began, but had to stop and swallow. Her voice sounded huskier than usual.

Jon knelt beside her, and reached for her chin, intending to tip it up and give himself access to her throat, where the hypospray's injection would be most effective. He tried to keep things light, saying, "Well, T'Pol, the Doctor tells me you ran into a stubborn microbe on the surface," but the words died out as he saw the glittering hunger in her eyes when his fingers touched her face.

T'Pol seized his wrist, then brought up her other hand to hold his jaw. He felt a quick brush of another consciousness against his own. Compassion, mixed with a sudden rush of desire had made Archer momentarily speechless. But when T'Pol's mind had touched his, he had felt the intense physical desire that roared through her. "I must mate...must join," his own mind echoed hers. He remembered the vivid dreams he'd been having featuring the beautiful Vulcan in the starring role as his lover.

T'Pol's hand shaped the Captain's jaw. "You...also feel desire," she said in her husky voice.

"I do, T'Pol. I have felt it, for some time. I've tried to fight it.." Jon told her. The intense desires triggered by T'Pol's conditionâ€”what had Phlox called it? Pon something?â€”was making it very difficult to fight his own long-felt desires. Feeling T'Pol's lithe body so close, so warm, was not helping.

"Do not fight it, Jonathanâ€”come to me, instead," T'Pol insisted. He had pulled her hand away from his face, but she brought it back, cupping the Captain's firm jaw and turning his face so she could look into his eyes. The echo of the desire she'd felt earlier in his mind still glittered there.

"T'Pol, you're..." Jon began, planning to tell her she was ill, to appeal to the logic that he knew must be buried beneath the emotions that somehow seemed to hold sway at the moment. But T'Pol did not wait for his reasoned arguments. She tightened her grip on his jaw and brought his mouth down to hers, her lips opening over his.

Jon's mind went blank, any plans to reason with her gone. 'YES!' the more primitive part of his heart crowed. 'This is your chanceâ€”the woman you've wanted for months, here, and willing.' His mouth slanted across hers, taking over the kiss and pouring all of his previously hidden hunger into it.

T'Pol responded eagerly, reveling in Archer's passion. As he pulled back for a moment, however, she made a protesting noise, reached for his mouth again, and flipped him over on his back as easily as if he were a small child. Drowning in sensation, Jon's mind drifted for a time. He let his thoughts roam ('Mmmm...she tastes so good, feels soooo good') but her voice brought him back to his senses, abruptly.

Her words sounded disjointed "Need youâ€”must have youâ€”burningâ€”please help," but they recalled him to his mission. He had come to the decon chamber to help her, not to add to her problems! He jerked his jaw from her grasp, but she turned her attentions to his throat, instead. 'God, I can't think when she does that,' Jon thought. He carefully grasped her shoulders and moved her away, hardening his heart to the muffled moan that came from between her lips.

"T'Pol," Jon said. She continued to moan softly, her eyes shut. She looked like she was in pain, but Jon hardened his heart and shook her a few times. "Look at me, T'Pol!"

T'Pol responded to the note of command in his voice. She opened her eyes, and looked into his. Had she never noticed how beautiful they wereâ€”how well they fit into the rugged face to bring it a note of compassion, and save it from looking too stern? Waitâ€”what was she thinking? This was her commanding officerâ€”a human. He must notâ€”could not know the secrets of the Pon Farr. No Outworlder may know. This truth was taught to the children of Vulcan from the time that they could understand the mating bond and why it was forged between two families. But his eyes held such empathy, she felt that he, alone among Outworlders, could understand what she was going through.

Jon felt his heart contract at the pain and confusion on the normally impassive face of his Science Officer. "T'Pol," his voice was softer, persuasive. "You must let us help you. The doctor thinks..."

"What he thinks is not important," T'Pol almost hissed the words. Her short spell of logical thought was over. It mattered not that he was a Human. Jonathan Archer was a male, and he MUST help her to calm the raging fires within her. Jon stared at her for a moment. He had not heard such feeling in her voice before today. "What we desire is what is important!" she insisted.

The use of that term, so foreign-sounding from the usually logical Science Officer, focused Archer's mind. 'Desire is ALL she's feeling right now,' he reminded himself. He had known since those disturbing dreams had begun that desire was not all he felt, however. He had also wanted to make T'Pol laugh, to challenge her with interesting problems and puzzles, be with her during quiet times. He had a sneaking suspicion that he might be falling in love with her. The realization came to him that as much as he desired the beautiful Vulcan, he would not take advantage of her vulnerable state.

But how to distract her so he could administer the sedative? His mind wandered for a moment as the fact that T'Pol was running her lips (beautiful, full lips) up his throat and along his jaw line...'Hold, it, Archer!' he scolded his runaway thoughts. 'Ah, now I've got it,' he decided.

"T'Pol," he began, then had to clear his throat before continuing. At least he had no trouble sounding authentically excited. His heart was pounding, too. He had to pull this off, had to help T'Pol, if there was to be any chance for them to have a real relationship. And that was something that had become to mean the whole universe to him, he realized.

T'Pol had ceased her distracting actions and was gazing up at him, but her hands moved restlessly along his arms, stroking, kneading the muscles and flesh. "T'Pol, let me take care of us...I'll show you how I'll do it..." Jon said, as he reached for her. She yielded with a soft groan that shot his temperature up a few more degrees.

Then his brain stopped functioning as he bent his head and returned her caresses, kneading her arms, then her shoulders as he kissed her throat, her jaw, and, finally, her lips. The hungry kiss seemed to go on and on. Jon finally began to think again as he had to break the kiss to breathe.

He dropped his hand to his side where he thought the hypo-spray had dropped, then felt a moment's panic as his hand encountered only the deck plating. To mask his search, he resumed the kiss and rolled T'Pol slightly until his hand encountered the instrument. 'At last!' he thought as he brought the medication into position. T'Pol obligingly kept her eyes shut, moaning his name and clutching his hair tightly.

"I'm sorry, T'Pol, but we would both regret this later," he told her as the hypo hit her neck and the medication entered her system. He saw a momentary clearing of the fog of desire in her eyes, just before the lids slid down and her body fell limply into his arms.

He sighed and lifted the slender woman close to his chest. Now that she was unconscious, he could hold her without guilt. "Someday, T'Pol, you and I will have this conversation again," he told her. "And it'll have a much different ending. Much different."

As she slept on, unaware, Jon shifted her to a more comfortable position and moved to the doors of the decon chamber.

Phlox looked up as the Sickbay door hissed open. Captain Archer came through almost before the doors were fully opened, with an unconscious T'Pol in his arms. The doctor darted around the bio-bed and ran his medical scanner over her. He sighed, relieved. "Her readings appear to be going down, Captain. I think she is on the way to recovery." Phlox's customary smile curved his mouth.

"Thanks, Doc," Archer said as he laid the exhausted Vulcan woman down on the bed, then braced himself on one arm above her head as he brushed the hair off her forehead with the other hand. "Can you keep an eye on her until she's more herself?"

"Of course, Captain. But first I think she needs nourishment. I'll have Chef prepare something light, if you'll wait here with her for a moment," Phlox said as he moved toward the sickbay doors. Obviously, he wanted to supervise Chef's preparations.

Jon smiled to himself and shook his head slightly as the doctor bustled happily away. You'd never think that he had been embarrassed and nervous just a few hours ago.

Jon continued to stare at the door for a moment, but the brush of a hand against his wrist drew his attention back to the patient. "Jonathan..." her voice was a mere breath of sound. He bent over her to hear her better. "I'm here, T'Pol," he told her.

"Why...," she stopped for a moment, coughed, and then continued. "Why did you not join with me, Jonathan? I was...more than willing."

Although she steadily maintained eye contact with him, Jon could see the slight flush that climbed up her throat and into her face. T'Pol, embarrassed. Imagine that.

Jon knew that it took real courage for his Science Officer to continue to look him in the eye as she waited for his response. His eyes stayed locked with hers as he gathered her hand into his and perched on the side of the bio bed. "It wasn't enough for me, T'Pol," he said, seriously.

"Not...not enough? But, I offeredâ€”all of myself," she told him.

He could see a faint shadow of hurt in her eyes. He wanted to erase that hurt as quickly as possible. Who would have thought, when they first met, that he would care about any Vulcan this deeply, Jon thought. He let his eyes smile into hers as he smoothed her hair back. "No, T'Pol. You were offering only your body. I needed to hold out...for your heart."

"I don't know if I can, Jonathan," T'Pol's fingers tightened around his. "The emotions you humans must be shown...it would be difficult."

"No, it won't," Jon told her. He brought up his other hand, and touched her chin, briefly. "I can see your stubbornness in this chin," he began. He touched each feature in turn as he named them. "This nose goes up in the air when you're disgusted with our human silliness. These eyes sparkle just a bit when you're getting ready to argue a nice point of logic," Jon paused to cup her chin in his hand as he grew serious. "I want to see those eyes grow warm for me," he raised a finger to forestall the protest he saw forming on her lips. "Just a little, T'Pol. You won't have to let it show very much. I find that I am very attuned to your expressions."

"I...I will try, Jonathan," she said. "But you must tell me if am succeeding."

"I'll tell you what," he said raising her chin. "I'll show you, instead." His lips covered hers in a warm kiss.

"That would be an excellent idea, Captain," she told him as he lifted his head. "Please give me another example."

As her fingers tangled in his hair and she drew his head down, he smiled his agreement into eyes that showed plenty of warmth. You just had to be watching for it, Jon told himself.


End file.
